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I could totally keep up with Archie’s schedule of sleeping all day. Instead – I studied all day!

Was up a little late watching Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution last night. That’s my new fave show. “The Naked Chef” used to air after school when I was in middle school, and I will always credit it for teaching me how to be passionate about food. The man doesn’t know it yet, but he’ll be leaving his wife for me :P

Anyways, there’s no clock in my room, and I magically woke up 8 hours after drifting to sleep. Perfection!

Dug through my mom’s fridge and came up with this for breakfast:

I found sesame ezekiel bread in the freezer! Better than finding a $20 bill on the side of the road :P

This bread is seriously like gold – two pieces have 160 calories, 28g carbs, 6g fibre, 8g protein. However, it’s also priced like gold – $5 a pop. Too rich for my blood, hence the joy when I discovered it.

Butter was used on both the toast and frying pan for the eggs. Mmmm…

My mom went off to exercise class this morning while I stayed home. Boo! My body’s due for a rest day, and my cold is progressing. I’ve gone from a sore throat, to sore throat and runny nose. It’s all pretty mild though, hoping it gets through all the stages quickly.

Instead, I studied! I studied all freakin’ day. There is SO MUCH material I need to know for my personal training test next weekend. I’m starting to get nervous I won’t be able to cram it all in my brain.

My morning snack did not fall into the healthy category – but I wanted a treat.

President’s Choice Chocolate Peanut Butter Crunch Equalizer bar.

The ingredient list might take a while to read…

Overall it was okay.

I don’t eat these types of protein bars much anymore, so when I do I want something that’s really good and worth the splurge. This, while chocolatey and edible, wasn’t quite worth it. But ya never know till you try!

I found this bouquet sale in my mom’s fridge. I have no clue what it is, a rub or tapenade of sorts?

Mostly made up of veggie bits, and only 5 calories a tablespoon.

Plus, it smelled darn good so I scooped a bunch into my turkey salad, which already had some mustard, cucumber dressing, onions and celery.

Whoooa nelly, it was salty. I got so excited to see it was only 5 cals per tbsp, I somehow missed the 510 mg of salt!! Whoops. My “palette” is sensitive to salt to begin with, so it was overload. Didn’t stop me from polishing it off though ;)

Mark (mom’s boyfriend) found some honey lemontea for me to help the cold along.

Drank out of one of my mother’s famed monarchy mugs.

Yes, we are Anglican monarchists. I could also probably identify the characters on Coronation Street for you. Wished this tea was Earl Grey because honey lemon sucks. Blech. Tastes like Neocitran, Soothed the throat though!

Mom and I teamed up for dinner. She made baked chicken breast with a crazy good mushroom gravy.

For the gravy, she simmered 1/2 a can of Campbell’s low-fat cream of mushroom soup, chicken broth, mushrooms and onions.

Mommy dearest also assembled the Greek salad.

She buys the good olive oil as well. The stuff that’s actually green. Really, at this rate, she’s lucky I haven’t moved back home yet.

My contribution?

Cheetahs! Sliced sweet potato sprinkled with salt and chili powder, baked in a 450 F oven for 20-30 minutes. My mom also mashed some taters. Deeeelish meal. Even the kids ate it up.

That’s all from me today! I’m super stiff from studying all day, so I’m going to go stretch out a bit before hitting the books again. Hoping to get lots more sleep tonight so I’m good enough to sneak in a workout and visit to my Nana tomorrow. Will play it by ear. Enjoy the rest of your weekend!! xoxo

Question of the Day: What is one grocery item you must splurge on? What is one you won’t? Protein powder is always my most expensive grocery item, but it’s one I refuse to give up. I cannot bring myself to buy expensive frozen dinners though ($6 Amy’s bowls, I’m looking at you).

Fresh roasted pumpkin I love. Pumpkin cream cheese muffins make my mouth water. Pumpkin pie is one of my favourites (okay, I like all pies).

But I cannot stand the mushy tastelessness of the canned stuff. I have to add a whole container of pumpkin pie spice to make it edible in anything, and even then it just makes things… mushy.

So there ya go.

While we’re at it, I don’t like Christmas. But I’ll save that for another day :P

You know what I do like though? Waffles!

It’s an addiction, I know. Before these though, I had a stellar weight lifting workout.

I picked up the September issue of Oxygen magazine for the first time after hearing Janetha say good things about it. I always shied away from this magazine because it’s full of scary looking fitness models, but it’s got great weight lifting info for women!

One of the tidbits in there is about pyramid sets. In a regular pyramid, you start off at a low weight with high reps, then increase the weight and reduce the reps with each set. It allows you tooverload the muscle gradually. A reverse pyramid is just the opposite, starting with a heavy weight and low reps, decreasing the weight and increasing the reps with each set. This allows you to use the heaviest weight at the beginning while your muscles are still strong.

The heavy weight sets will build strength, the medium ones will build lean muscle and the lighter ones will improve endurance and recovery. Mixing these up will shock your muscles instead of letting them adapt.

So I hit up the gym this morning with this in mind. I decided to go old-school with the exercises, and take my time to really focus on the weights I was using and my form.

Warm-up:15 minutes on the elliptical, increasing the resistance every 2 minutes

T’was a good time! I really like switching it up in the weight room. Part of the reason why I’m contemplating not doing another lifting program this winter. I like picking and choosing what I want to focus on :)

Theeeen it was waffle time :)

The usual. Maple cinnamon waffles with almond butter, yogurt and strawberries. I am singing my love for this combo from the mountain tops! :)

And a little protein juice to chase it down, otherwise known as PVL peach whey cooler. Not the prettiest photo – I was thirsty!!

I’ve also been quite vocal in the past about my dislike for wraps/tortillas. I’ve just never been a fan of the chewy denseness of them. Plus, all the full to medium-size ones around here are 200+ calories with little fibre and protein. But I found these in the freezer in the health food section the other day and decided to give them a whirl.

Ezekiel organic sprouted whole grain tortillas. Nutritionals on these are the best I’ve found yet.

For lunch, I packed one of these babies with leftover curry salmon salad, cottage cheese and romaine lettuce. Then I took an exceptionally bad photo at the office.

Sorry! I got busy with work once it was unwrapped. The tortilla was alright. Still dense, but at least not chewy. Very seed-y, and quite thick. I think it would be better grilled, or as a quesadilla.

I just got groceries, so I had way too many options for dinner. I couldn’t wrap my head around it, so I just went with the simplest things possible.

Tempeh burger broiled with a string cheese and dipped in barbecue sauce. A bowl of honeydew melon on the side. Eaten on the couch. Just one of those days!

Except, I’m kinda hungry again. The water in the melon only temporarily filled me up.

Question time!

1. Any popular foods you dislike? I also don’t like rice and pasta. I’m more of a sauce-y gal ;)

2. What’s your favourite holiday? Mine is Halloween. But that’s just because I like dressing up and little bite-sized candies.

Also! I’m going away to Windsor next weekend and I won’t be blogging on my usual schedule. So I’m putting out the call for guest posts! I need 3-4 posts :)

Okay, the boy is here and he keeps staring at me while I blog. I think it’s time I go pay attention to him. Later!

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Welcome!

My name is Susan, I'm a 20-something living in Atlantic Canada and this is my blog about... me. I used to blog about food and fitness, but that all changed in June 2011 when I was diagnosed with Hodgkin's Lymphoma. After six months of chemotherapy, I was declared cancer-free in January 2012. I now write about anything and everything as I stumble through my post-cancer world. I'm a trained journalist currently working as a writer/researcher. I also have a background in personal fitness training and nutrition. Welcome to my piece of the internet!
See my About page or Top Posts page for more.

Contact

E-mail me at: thegreatbalancingact@gmail.com

Due to my current illness, please be patient for responses to e-mails and comments. If anything is urgent, please let me know!